emerging online just in time for EOY lists! 40 albums and EPs I loved in 2025, and accompanying BANGERS playlist
open.spotify.com/playlist/4Gj...20 mixes I loved
30 tracks I loved
lol today's tennis x cryptic crossword crossover
To make up for the politics post! Vignarola in Rome in May is non-negotiable afaic. God the way the perfectly crispy guanciale just BURSTS in your mouth
Roman graffiti out of a bus window. Fuck Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper forever
Every time some tells me generative AI is getting so much better I test out the hypothesis by prompting it to draw someone playing tennis, and it rarely disappoints.
Anora! First time I think I've ever seen a film, raved about it endlessly, and then been surprised to find the Oscars agree with me. Obviously Mikey Madison is electric but the "class solidarity between sex workers and hired goons" aspect was an amazing mid-film swerve.
Had this debate irl: I don't think Anora ever deludes herself that Vanya loves her, and so never seems pathetic. Her Act II "desperation" is her playing an unlikely hand as hard and as far as she can, but the pay-off (which she's already agreed to) is always the back-up option
I did not like The Substance aside from Demi Moore. Bit bored of supposedly feminist films in which the characters who are most contemptuously belittled and whose punishment we linger on most explicitly are the women. Not as bad as Promising Young Woman for that but then not much could be
all through Creation Lake I was thinking this book will stand or fall or whether Rachel Kushner lands the ending...... and I don't think she did, oof. felt a bit like it was fishing for a TV adaptation esp with making the main character a vaguely witty, sociopathic cipher
Full Attention
Terror Danjah · Full Attention · Song · 2011
I didn't expect the new fka twigs album to be so Ray of Light coded
one-handed backhands into both junior AO QFs (Lilli Tagger and Henry Bernet) - it is (just about) alive!
Sabalenka's 10th Slam SF. I've been waiting for someone new to get to double-digit Slam SFs for SO LONG (since 2008, to be precise)
That was a very fun second set between Pavlyuchenkova (that wild reflex volley!) and Sabalenka (that BH DTL slice winner!).
Trivia! Pavlyuchenkova owns 38 Top 10 wins in her career so far but only one over a reigning No.1 - who, when, where?
(Kerber in the 2017 Monterrey final)
point Elina Svitolina!!! had no idea how these two would match up with each other and it seems to be heating up in the second set
I used to think the worst song ever written was Hey Jude but having to watch so much tennis has taught me that in fact it is Sweet Caroline TIED with We Will Rock You. cultural atrocities, both of them. and when did Sweet Caroline become a thing??? I don't think I heard it til this decade
I am such a hater that not only do I hate these songs but I hate seeing people enjoy them. I hate thinking about people enjoying them. I want these songs erased!!!
beautiful TB from Monfils! the opening point was art. in contrast, my god Fritz's game is ungainly and hard to watch
GAEL MONFILS 🕺
such fun rallies in Moutet/Tien rn!
not falling into the trap of declaring clutchness to be an innate constant but Tien's unflappability level has been absurd in his last two sets
idea: Danielle Collins/Corentin Moutet mixed doubles, preferably with a home crowd against them
Veronika Kudermetova said in Seoul last year she was motivated by not letting her little sister go deeper in a tournament than her, and it looks like she brought the same energy to Polina overtaking her in the rankings. Rarely seen her so pumped up. (The defeat of Boulter is not surprising per se.)
Marozsan making an impossible volley at full stretch to get to SP... then botching the easiest volley of all time on it 🙃
converts SP3 with a beautifully angled volley, ofc
Elena Rybakina on suddenly finding herself having to navigate a 2024 junior draw
Taylor Fritz his self-awareness
(haven't processed him reaching a Slam SF yet)
rare to see a broadcasting innovation in sport that isn't a bad gimmick but Eurosport highlighting all the previous big points and hot shots in a match stream is 🔥also the notifications that pop up if a hot shot happens/potential upset brews elsewhere (without being obtrusive!)
just when I thought Samrej should stop trying to drop shot Medvedev, after failing with his last three... he pulls out two perfect ones to hold
meanwhile that collapse from Arnaldi from 5-2 up, oof... the two DFs serving for the set, the shanks that ensued... like he suddenly remembered he's 0-3 vs Musetti
omg that running Musetti pass to seal SP, what a shot
Putintseva seems to have emerged in 2025 with real technical and tactical improvements (never seen her serve so well)... but has lost the ability to close out leads efficiently. The end of that set vs Avanesyan was a bit of an adventure, needed six SPs in the end
